I've never seen a gray owl.

They are a  very large bird that some call "ghost owl"

There is poem I love about the gray owl.

Poet Ted Kooser likes it too. He says,

"To touch our hearts, a poem needs to rise above mere anecdote

and reach into something beyond, something greater, or, as the Chinese poets said,

'a poem must lift its eyes.'

A Sighting

by Connie Wane

The gray owl had seen us and fled

but not far. We followed noiselessly,

driving him from pine to pine:

I will not let thee go except thou bless me.

He flew as though it gave him no pleasure,

forcing himself from the bough,

falling untill his wings caught him:

they had to stroke hard, like heavy oars.

  

He must have just eaten

something that had, itself, just eaten.

Finally he crossed the swamp and vanished

as into a new day,hours before us,

and we stood near the chest-high reeds,

our feet sinking, and felt

we'd been dropped suddenly from midair

back into our lives.

Reading this poem I became part of the "we"

part of the experience

I think I will put spotting a gray in flight

on my bucket list.